This invention relates to a feeding device. More particularly, this invention relates to a device for individually feeding a plurality of stacked flat articles. In a specific, preferred embodiment, the articles are cards or tickets and the device feeds the cards or tickets to a conventional printer which forms no part of the present invention.
Feeding devices of the type mentioned hereinabove are substantially hoppers. Frequently, such hoppers have a capacity of only several hundred cards or tickets (hereinafter called "cards") because greater numbers of cards overload the drive wheels provided at the bottom of the hopper for ejecting the cards; in particular, the drive wheels are no longer able to remove the bottom card from the stack. In addition, the hoppers are overly sensitive to card shape and derivations from the optimum flat article. Various solutions have been proposed for this problem. In general, the solutions are quite complicated. In the present invention, there is provided a simple solution to this problem which increases the capacity of the hopper to greater than 600 cards.
In particular, the feeding device of the invention comprises the conventional drivable means for frictionally engaging and feeding cards, means for retaining the cards in an upright stack with the bottom card resting partly on the drivable means and means partly supporting the stack at an angle to the horizontal thereby to relieve part of the weight of the stack from the drivable means.
In a particular, preferred embodiment, the means for retaining the cards in an upright stack comprises a hopper having a front wall at the extremity of the hopper from which the cards are fed, a rear wall opposite the front wall and side walls at right angles to the front and rear walls, and the means partly supporting the stack comprises a member, one end of which is hooked, the hooked end loosely fitting on the top edge of the rear wall of the hopper, and the other end of the member extending upwardly and toward the front wall of the hopper and carrying a roller rotatable about a horizontal axis parallel to the front and rear walls of the stack up so that the cards in the stack are tilted toward the front wall of the hopper and the hooked end of the member being restrained by the stack of cards from moving toward the front wall of the hopper when the hopper is full and moving toward the front wall of the hopper and thereby lowering the roller as the hopper empties, the roller thereby bearing a lesser and lesser proportion of the weight of the stack as the stack is depleted by feeding of the cards from the hopper.
Another feature of the invention is ramp means mounted on the rear wall of the hopper, the ramp means being downwardly inclined toward the front wall of the hopper. An exit slot is provided for the cards, the slot being of greater height than one of the cards but lesser height than two of the cards and passing through the front wall of the hopper. A platen is provided which defines the bottom of the exit slot and supports the stack adjacent to the exit slot. There is also provided a member having a tapered end extending downwardly on the inside of the front wall of the hopper and the bottom extremity of which defines the top of the exit slot. The ramp means tends to urge the bottom card beneath the tapered end of the member thereby to help ensure reliable feeding of a single card from the bottom of the stack. Means may be provided for adjusting the height of the slot. For example, the member having a tapered end may be vertically adjustably mounted on the front wall of the hopper.
Yet another feature of the invention is the provision of first and second switches each having an arm extending into the hopper and adapted to engage the front side of the stack, the two arms being located one higher than the other and both near the platen, the higher switch being adapted for actuating means for signaling a low card supply in the hopper when the stack no longer engages the arm of the higher switch and the lower switch being adapted for actuating means for signaling that the hopper is now considered empty when the stack no longer engages the arm of the lower switch, although the hopper may, in fact, contain a small quantity of cards.